June 24, 2010

How To Be Fabulously Successful

People often say to me, "Ad Contrarian, how can I be a fabulously successful online copywriter like you?"

Well, I'm here to tell you that you, too, can be famous and make millions of dollars and have super-hot nymphos crawling all over you.

What's the secret to online copywriting success? First, you need some words. Words are the building blocks of writing! Without words, writing is a thankless chore. Take the Sumerians. They didn't have words. All they had were pictures. Now they're dead.

The best part? They're all free! Any word you want. Even "penultimate."

When we write online copy, the words we use say a lot about us. If we are depressed, we want to use depressing words like "advertising" or "exercise."

If we are funny, then we want to use funny words, like "homo" or "Kotex."

The important thing is to beyourself when you are writing. You have to know who you really are. If you don’t know who you are, you have to find yourself. The best place to find yourself is in bed. Hopefully, with someone cute.

The Key To Being Creative: Creativity
In order to be a successful online copywriter you have to be creative. The most important part of being creative is "creativity". Without "creativity" most of us wouldn’t have a creative bone in our body. Except maybe our fibula.

Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers.

How do you nourish your creativity? I suggest chicken caesar wraps. But I know a very successful creative director who swears by strawberry Toaster Strudel.

The important thing to remember is that we’re all creative. Although, honestly, I have my doubts about Leon Panetta.

The F Word: It’s Effing Awesome!
On the internet, content is king. And dirty words is queen.

If you are writing a blog, you must be hard-boiled and never show weakness. You must not let on that you are from Valley Stream and went to Hofstra and worked at Grey. You must show the world that you’re an anarchistic, hard-living, hard-drinking bastard. And what better way to be a bad-ass muthafucka than to use naughty language.

Words like "fuck,” “bullshit,” and “douchebag” make your copy sing! Put a few of them together and you’ve got magic -- “Fuckingdouchebag!,” “Fuckingbullshit!,” “Fuckingfuck!” (By the way, it is impossible to punctuate that last sentence properly, even for an experienced online copywriter.)

The ability to express complex concepts in a censorship-free environment is what makes the web great. Well, that and those nutty cats on YouTube.

Understanding Your Online Customer
Let’s face it. Most of the people who visit your website are fuckingdouchebags.

I mean...um... they are Web 2.0 savvy consumers whose engagement with their own personal brands make them willing to join the conversation in an interactive way that leverages social media to become engaged customers for life. You know, that kind of thing.

Well, whatever the hell they are, they got money and we want it!

Remember, engaging content is how you engage their engagement.

The Three Simple, Double-Secret Magical Copywriting Rules for Success
Now we get to the heart of the matter. Anyone can be a successful online copywriter if you just follow these three simple, double-secret, magical rules:

1. Don’t use Windex on your computer screen. It fucks up the molecules or something.

2. Don’t hold back. People love to know personal details about your life. Unless you have a hernia or some kind of smelly intestinal disorder.

"Caustic Yet Truthful"

"The Most provocative Man In Advertising"

"Savage Critiques Of Digital Hype"

"Fabulously Irreverent"

CONTACT BOB

Over 60,000 people have watched Bob's talk at Advertising week, Europe

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Creative people make the ads. Everyone else makes the arrangements."

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business is about sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."